Mandich taught people how to live, friends how to die

Dolphins star, 62, remembered by friends, teammates

April 30, 2011|Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel Columnist

WELLINGTON — One final time his three sons helped the casket down the aisle past his Michigan buddies and Dolphins teammates, past his business partners and media friends, past the several hundred lucky enough to call Jim Mandich a friend.

There was Tom Curtis, who Jim first met at 16 in the shot put pit during high school in Ohio. "He beat me by 20 feet," Curtis said.

There was Don Shula, who was eating breakfast in a Super Bowl Week hotel in 1972 when Mandich entered with teammates just returning from an all-night party. Mandich was Mandich. He plopped his breakfast tray across from Shula.

"Morning, coach," he said.

There was Heat president Pat Riley in St. Therese de Lisieux Church, too. Just Wednesday after Game 5 of the Heat playoff series, Riley had a tub of Heinekens on ice waiting when media finished work in honor of his friend.

"Let's tell some Mad Dog stories,'' Riley said.

For the next half hour, good stories, therapeutic laughs and Mandich's green lizards flowed in AmericanAirlines Arena. Riley told a story. After a wrenching playoff loss to the Knicks in 1997, he met Mandich at a South Beach watering hole.

A few hours later, Riley went home, tripped and appeared for work the next day with a bandage on his forehead. A swimming accident, he told everyone then.

"You wuss,'' Mandich told Riley. "You can't hang with me."

Now, here in the church, a few hundred of his friends came to hang with him one final Saturday afternoon. And you know it was a grand life, all the way, because Mandich won three Super Bowl rings and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame and no one told any football stories. Not one.

His life was beyond that. The closest anyone came was when Dan Richey, a corporate fruit industry owner who knew Mandich for years, said he struggled how to start his talk until overhearing Shula talking with former Dolphins Bob Griese and Nick Buoniconti.

"Coach Shula told Bob and Nick, 'When you were with Mandich, you just knew you were going to have fun,'" Richey said. "That was Jim."

Joe Rose, his radio partner, told stories of Mandich buying drinks for a couple hundred fans in Houston. Auto dealer Jim Maroone told how he heard Mandich's voice in his head as he talked, saying, "Kid, keep it short and skip the pity party."

There were stories about how Mandich fought cancer. He referred to chemotherapy treatments as "happy hour." He interrupted a nurse who was telling him about some debilitating side effects of medication.

"The doctors told me all the good it'll do,'' he said. "I don't need to hear the bad."

He renewed vows with his wife of more than three decades, Bonnie, last Sunday as his oldest son, Michael, was married. He held hands with Rose in the hospital and talked of what and who mattered.

"Jim taught us how to live life to the fullest,'' Maroone said. "Jim also taught us how to die."

Outside the church, after the ceremony, Dolphins Hall of Famer Larry Little counted on his fingers his fallen teammates from that Perfect Season.

"Wayne Moore, Bob Matheson, Terry Cole…" he said.

"Charlie Leigh,'' Jim Kiick said.

"And now Jim,'' Little said.

"We're getting old,'' Kiick said.

Mandich was 62. And already missed. There were football names there to say farewell, such as former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr and the school's former greats in Steve Hutchinson and Chad Henne, the Dolphins quarterback.

More than a dozen former Dolphins were there. Former Dolphins executive Bryan Wiedmeier flew in from Cleveland.

"Jim could've thrown a nice party with this group,'' Little said.

Kiick looked around at all the people. "He did throw a party,'' Kiick said. "Look at all the friends he made."